Fruits?

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We agree wholeheartedly that what queers really need is a miniseries comparable to Roots, the 1977 series based on Alex Haley's novel. It is the next logical step toward full citizenship in the United States of Painful History Re-Packaged as Banal Spectacle, and, no, we don't count the 1993 miniseries based on Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City because it only aired on PBS. We gladly offer Fruits as a proposed title for the series, but we're reluctant to start trying to cast the role of a queer Kunta Kinte for fear of again incurring the wrath of the Division of Standards and Practices here in Roxie's World, which is monitoring us closely after yesterday's naughty little post about lesbian sex practices in the Obama White House. (You missed the shocking news? Scroll down, or click here.) If we started daydreaming about who should play the role of Kunta Kinte in our queer miniseries, my typist's known fondness for bawdy, anatomically oriented puns would no doubt lead to a series of tasteless Jodie Foster jokes that would probably culminate in a semi-pornographic fantasy of an Amazonian warrior queen leading an army of, um, fisted sisters. Oh, dear. I told you we should not head down this road. Stop thinking about Kunta Kinte immediately. Please.

Anyway, we think this miniseries idea is brilliant. What better way to win back the friends the LGBT community is apparently losing by getting all hot and bothered when fellow citizens vote to take their rights away? SF Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders explains that, though she has voted against efforts to ban same-sex marriage in the past, in the November election she chose to abstain on California's Prop 8, apparently because gays and their allies have been just a little too pushy for her taste. "There's a heavy-handedness to the true believers," Saunders sniffs. "They use public schools to push their political agenda with young kids." She offers no evidence in support of that claim and suggests that queers are being disingenuous in arguing that Prop 8 "took away" any substantive rights enjoyed by same-sex couples in California once the Supreme Court had legalized marriage: "The only right changed was the ability to call themselves married under state law. The other benefits stand."

Dear Ms. Saunders,

Thanks for the helpful explanation. We are real sorry that you've been offended by the passion with which LGBT citizens have pursued their right to civil equality and by their righteous determination to hold fellow citizens to account for making money off the gay community and then contributing some of that money to the effort to deny them rights enjoyed by others. We can appreciate how uncomfortable this makes you and promise to exhort California queers to be more well-behaved in the future, because we understand that civil rights are always granted to those who wait politely for them to be granted without causing any undue discomposure to others. We are also grateful to you for explaining that the Supreme Court of California was gravely mistaken when it ruled that reserving the term "marriage" for opposite-sex couples was a constitutionally impermissible denial of equal dignity and respect to same-sex couples, even if their relationships were granted the same substantive benefits and protections of marriage. Since words don't matter, we've decided to start referring to opposite-sex marriages as "poop on toast" just to see how it makes our straight fellow citizens feel. We hope that won't offend you, but we got the idea from your incredibly thoughtful explanation of why queers should shut up and accept their second-class status. We promise to give you credit when we send in our RSVP to the next poop-on-toast invitation we receive.

Yours sincerely,
Roxie

Yep, what we need is a good miniseries. We're pretty sure Roots is, like, 99% responsible for the election of President Barack H. Obama. We don't have any evidence for that claim, of course, but the art of the unsupported assertion is one more lesson we learned from Debra Saunders. Maybe we can get Jodie to direct. Unless she just really, really wants to lead that unruly band of, um, fisted sisters. And fruity brothers. We'll reach out to her people and let you know what she says. Cross your fingers and get ready for your close-ups, kids!